[MEncoder-users] Mencoder stops encoding after a few minutes

[Pierre Catello]

I'm having a weird problem with Mencoder, trying to encode a DV source :
- after testing various encoder settings on many clips (without problems), I
launched the encoding of the full file.

Strangely, Mencoder only processed the first few minutes of the file (~
first 4 minutes).
It seems that the number of frame to encode is wrong from the beginning, as
the estimated remaining time remaining is much too short from the start...

I though that the AVI header could be bad or something like that, so I
imported the clip into the virtualdub utilities to export it back in a new
AVI.

A retry to process the new AVI with Mencoder, which went a bit further (~
14000 frames out of 33000). Note that I tried several time and it stop
always at the same number of frames.

I then tried to play the dv file in mplayer, which crash immediately :
----
MPlayer interrupted by signal 11 in module: decode_video
- MPlayer crashed by bad usage of CPU/FPU/RAM.
  Recompile MPlayer with --enable-debug and make a 'gdb' backtrace and
disassembly. Details in DOCS/HTML/en/bugreports_what.html#bugreports_crash.
- MPlayer crashed. This shouldn't happen.
----

Note that VLC, ffplay, avidemux2, virtualdub... all import/play the file
correctly up to the end.

The source file is a 5 GB DV footage edited and exported from Sony Vegas.
I'm running Mplayer/Mencoder 1.0 rc1 (official binaries) on windows 2000 and
cygwin (but problems are the same witout cygwin), and the computer hardware
is trusty (non overclocked, good ram, no problem reported by memtest86 and
no crash in other context)

I uploaded the beginning of the file (clipped with Virtualdub), which makes
mplayer crash :
http://dl-3.free.fr/52616e646f6d4956d2c79355d5ff3c58452a0c5f5f3a2d79bab8cdadceb1014d/clip.dv.avi

May be someone can help me?

PS: My mencoder script is currently as follows:
-------
INFILE=$1
MENCODER=/cygdrive/c/inst/mplayer/mencoder.exe
STATFILE='divx2pass.log'
# VFILTER='-fps 50 -ofps 50 -vf
yadif=1:1,hqdn3d=3:2:3,unsharp=l3x3:.6:c3x3:.4'
VFILTER='-fps 50 -ofps 50 -vf yadif=1:1'
# VFILTER='-aspect 4:3 -force-avi-aspect 4:3 -fps 50 -ofps 50 -vf
tfields=4:1'

# x264 settings
X264OPTS="subq=5:frameref=15:8x8dct:bframes=3:b_pyramid:weight_b"

# AUDIO='-oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=64:mode=3'
# AUDIO='-oac copy'
AUDIO='-nosound'

# cleanup stat file
rm -f $STATFILE

# first pass:
$MENCODER $INFILE $AUDIO $VFILTER \
    -ovc x264 -x264encopts $X264OPTS:turbo=1:pass=1 \
    -o x264-pass1.avi

# second pass for a range of bitrates
for BITRATE in 2000 1500 1000
do
  $MENCODER $INFILE $AUDIO $VFILTER \
    -ovc x264 -x264encopts $X264OPTS:bitrate=$BITRATE:pass=2 \
    -o $INFILE-x264-$BITRATE.avi
done

rm -f x264-pass1.avi
-------

Pierre